What is IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics)?

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) or ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) checks mass storage devices such as hard drives and ATAPI (Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface) and also adds devices such as DVD-ROM or CD-ROM to the system.

What is IDE or ATA?

The original name for IDE was ATA, and over time, the interlocking cable created by IBM became widely used as manufacturers realized they had to make universal components.

This is why it is a synonymous term with ATA, as both technologies are interconnected.

History

The ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) standard was first designed in 1988 as the former PIO (Programmed Input Output) for transmitting and receiving data.

Initially, controllers were used as expansion cards, mostly ISA, and were only integrated into motherboards produced by brands such as IBM, Dell, or Commodore.

To meet the need for more extensive data throughput, two AT transmission modes emerged in 1996, namely ATA-2 or EIDE.

Due to the low performance of ATA-2 and its burden on the processor, the Ultra ATA model was developed in 1998, which uses the DMA bus and does not need to use the processor for data transfer.

The most common version, as well as multiple I/O cards, grouped RS-232 ports and a parallel port. Also, only high-end models had SIMM connectors for disk caching.

Later, device integration enabled a single chip to do all the work.

IDE Connector

With the PCI bus, IDE controllers are always included as part of the chipset on the motherboard, and usually, both controllers have two connectors to support two devices.

One of the two hard drives connected to the computer must be the Enslaver, and the other must be the Enslaved person so that the controller can identify the device to send and receive data.

The Master and Slave settings are configured with a jumper available on disks.

If there is only one disk connected by IDE cable, the disk can work as Master, but if a new disk or CD or DVD reader is added, you will need to configure these devices as Slave.

In short, when you add a device to the system, it must have a Master device in the environment for it to work as a Slave, and the device will be Master or Slave, depending on its location in the cable.

Different colors are used to distinguish the connector to which the bus will be connected. If there are two devices connected to this connector over a single cable, one device will operate while the other will not be available.

This problem with cables has been fixed with S-ATA and SCSI technologies that can use two devices per channel.

Although new connectivity technologies are introduced, old socket disks are used much more widely than SCSI because of their much lower prices. In addition, its performance is slower than that of SCSI.

UDMA performs Bus Mastering in SCSI, which reduces CPU load and increases speed. Serial ATA allows each hard drive to operate without interfering with the others.

Although SCSI is superior to IDE, SATA has begun to be used for computer systems because its performance is much higher and its price is more advantageous.

The interface uses a 40-pin flat and plug-in cable on the motherboard for a device to be added.

Each pin has a function assigned as 15 data bits and has a notch to verify that both ends are installed correctly.

The cable connects to one end of the port of a hard disk and the other end to the color-coded or notched interface, which is a flat rectangle on the motherboard.

Some cables have 44 pins, this 4 pin is for carrying the current to the device. However, they are used in tiny components that require very little energy.

Thanks to the development of technology, EIDE (Enhanced IDE) with 80 pins has been launched. However, the old term was used extensively for convenience.

Versions and Transfer Speeds

Conclusion

To wrap up, let me simplify Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE). IDE and ATA-shaped storage devices are still used today. Moreover, they’ve made it easier to connect storage to computers, which is pretty handy.

From the first ATA to Ultra-ATA, each version got faster and better. But now we’ve got newer stuff like SATA and SCSI. Still, IDE/ATA is cheap for a lot of people. That’s why it’s vital in the story of PC hardware. To sum up, its history lives on and keeps affecting how we store things on computers today.